


Paranoia is a Symptom of Stress

by BerryVine



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26543797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BerryVine/pseuds/BerryVine
Summary: ...and Facing a Dark Lord is Pretty Stressful. In which Harry is unusually careful for a Gryffindor, and Albus thinks on his failings.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore & Harry Potter
Kudos: 13





	Paranoia is a Symptom of Stress

Harry Potter is an eleven year old boy, and therefore exceptionally fickle. As such, when an irritating blonde git is his first exposure to the House of the cunning, he decides he’d rather avoid ‘those kind of people’, thanks.

He asks the Hat for Gryffindor, and that’s his House. Easy as that.

This doesn’t change who Harry Potter is, though. Through a great many years of neglect, of being overly-worked by his skeleton aunt and bulbous uncle, he has honed a more... overly suspicious way of thinking. How else would he make sure he avoided any excessive punishment? How else would he make sure he was well-fed enough not to starve, when the Dursleys could simply forget about him at any time?

He is quite smart, certainly brave and most definitely loyal to his friends, but beneath it all is a sharp, keen mind that made sure that nothing escapes his notice. After having such a miserable life at home, he has no intention of his new magical life ending up the same way – even if that means he’ll push himself to the point of never having a chance to unwind.

When he finds out there’s someone out for his life?

Well, that’s just proving him right, isn’t it.

* * *

In his first year, that skill set isn’t quite so refined yet, not yet tempered by age and true experience. He isn’t immediately drawn to the third floor, like any analytical mind may have picked up on as an area of interest, and chooses to stick to Dumbledore’s message to avoid it (for now). Instead, he notices the peculiar turban of Professor Quirrell.

When he asks the older Gryffindors, they say that the turban is new. They suspect some close shave with a vampire in Albania – hence the garlic – but he isn’t convinced. You’d wear a garlic necklace around the castle, or have some form of cross or holy water with you at all times if you were _really_ paranoid of a vampire attack.

The turban is weird, strange and with no good reason behind it. As such, Harry decides he’s going to find out what’s behind that turban as soon as he can.

Such an opportunity arrives on Halloween. After barging through the doors of the Great Hall and announcing the presence of a troll, Quirrell promptly falls flat on his face. As the student body panic, and the teachers begin to hand out orders, he sees his chance. Carefully moving his way past the rapidly standing pupils, he walks over to Quirrell’s prone body and simply knocks the thing off with his foot.

As garlic scatters on the floor, rolling under the tables, the Hall grows silent once more, as underneath the turban is a freakish face, looking rather surprised to be unmasked so suddenly.

Then it erupts in screams again, because a face being on the back of someone’s head is decidedly _not_ normal.

* * *

Harry’s paranoia had been vindicated by his second year, and so he makes sure to keep a close eye on others around him, particularly in the most populated place of all of Magical Britain just before the school year: Diagon Alley. Shopping with the Weasleys, the family of one of his new friends Ron, is a strange affair to him, so used to simply getting the leftovers of Dudley’s old things, and having not really had the chance to take in the experience of shopping his first time around, with only just entering an entirely new, secret world and all.

Therefore, _this_ is an experience he takes in gratefully and carefully in equal measure. He keeps an eye on all of the Weasley family, as well as the tag-along Hermione, as they go about their shop, and so when Lucius Malfoy ever so carefully slips a book into Ginny’s cauldron, he mimics the action to remove it, holding onto it for himself for safekeeping. The kind of strange object that the patriarch of a prestigious, rich and _dark_ family would slip into a rival family’s belongings is something that should be handled with care, and potentially learned from.

Inspecting it later, after taking it into his temporary room in the Burrow, he finds that it _talks back_. Needless to say, he doesn’t take too much credit into what it says, instead deciding that such a freaky thing would be better off in the hands of the Headmaster once they return to Hogwarts.

Of course, this is not before he learns of _how_ the book was made, learning of a variety of easy-writing spells that should come in handy for doing some irritating homework that he’s been stuck on. This never answers the question as to how it can _think_ , but the thing doesn’t intend on telling him either.

When he hands it over to Dumbledore, having gone through a mess involving Platform Nine and Three-Quarters – Mrs Weasley had been very confused as to why Harry and Ron hadn’t come in behind them, and so they’d had to Floo over to Hogwarts, a method of transport he is not especially fond of – he is not especially forthcoming on its nature either. He simply thanks Harry, saying this confirmed a theory he had, and that he may have helped in the fight against Voldemort.

Considering his current total of deflecting a spell with no real input, and knocking a turban off to expose him, this is really the first time he’s _directly_ thwarted a plan of the maniacal Voldemort and his dastardly crew, and he rides the high of it all year.

* * *

When Harry receives the Marauder’s Map from the twins in his third year, he is immediately enamoured with it. A tool that could keep track of everyone in the castle? Brilliant.

He devotes a good few days to understanding it, figuring out its various intricacies. It doesn’t have every room on it – like the Chamber of Secrets, which he assumes is _somewhere_ in Hogwarts, as most legends have some root in truth – and you have to ask it nicely if you think that someone’s name might have a Junior, or a double-barrel, and it may confirm or deny the fact, but it wasn’t incorrect, it was merely being _mysterious_.

Who makes a map _mysterious_? If he ever meets Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot or Prongs...

By doing this, he notices that a ‘Peter Pettigrew’ apparently sleeps in their dorm every night. The guy whose death is the main reason why Sirius Black was a prisoner of Azkaban, and currently an _escaped_ prisoner of Azkaban.

He is immediately on guard. The Map hasn’t lied to him before, nor would it have any reason to. Therefore, there is, definitively, a Peter Pettigrew in his dorm room, who also seems to be overlaid on Ron’s name every now and then, even when Harry is walking with Ron and Hermione with no one else in sight.

With that in mind, he presumes an Animagus. Going through the pets in their dorm, it seems likely that it’s Scabbers, the Weasleys’ passed down garden rat. How long do garden rats normally live for? Did they never _question_ that?

Regardless, he makes a careful, calculated move to grab Scabbers while he’s scampering around him. The rat’s been rather comfortable being around him recently, and the implications... kind of disturb him a little.

Once again, another anomalous thing is taken to Dumbledore’s office. The nature of this one _is_ , in fact, disclosed to him, as Dumbledore reverts Pettigrew to a human state with an anger that reminds him that Pettigrew had betrayed more than just his parents.

Sirius Black is not likely to be declared innocent any time soon, thanks to the grip of Lucius Malfoy on the current government, but it is clear that in the Headmaster’s mind, the verdict has already been passed.

* * *

In his fourth year, Harry notices yet another oddity with the Map. Every night, without fail, Bartemius Crouch goes into Alastor Moody’s office. Naturally, he is immediately suspicious of the situation – he dismisses the idea of a secret affair, especially involving the supposedly excessively paranoid Moody – and so he keeps a close eye on the actions of the two.

At one point, just before he enters his Defence against the Dark Arts class, he checks the Map, and finds that he should be expecting Crouch to be teaching his lesson. Instead, he walks in to see Moody at the front.

Polyjuice Potion. Likely what’s in his flask, thinking about it.

The answer to this one is simple. He grabs his Pocket Sneakoscope – having functioned fine once Pettigrew had been outed – and enters his next lesson with them in his socks. Unsurprisingly, it starts spinning, and doesn’t stop, even after everyone else in the class has left (he makes a showing of dropping something just before the end of the lesson, just so he can stick around for a few extra moments).

With these suspicions, and a good bit of proof, he heads to Dumbledore, who thanks him for his diligence, and promises to look into it. He isn’t entirely certain the Headmaster takes him seriously until the next day, when Moody’s seat is conspicuously absent.

The Triwizard Tournament goes off without a hitch, and Harry watches it with everyone else, unaware that by outing Voldemort in such a public fashion in his first year made his followers more active, bubbling quietly under the surface until this year, when they planned to strike. Barty Crouch Junior had intended to enter Harry into the tournament, but his discovery made this impossible.

Through his paranoia, Harry has thwarted Voldemort’s attempt at resurrection.

* * *

Harry’s fifth year doesn’t involve any attacks from Voldemort on Halloween, a surprising turn of events for him. Thanks to this, he is in a rather good mood throughout that week, and so when Hermione asks if he would like to help teach a Defence against the Dark Arts study group (formed out of a lack of good teachers prior, rather than a currently bad teacher – their current one was quite alright, actually), he decides that yes, of course he will, and in fact he will find a place for them to practice.

Afterwards, he feels like hitting his head against a wall, because this will mean he has to _actually_ _find_ such a place. Thankfully, this reminds him of Dobby and his strange method of punishment, so before he can re-enact those methods, he goes to ask him for any advice on where he could go.

This leads him to the Room of Requirement. His intrigue in the inner workings of such a room causes him to try and get the room to give him ‘everything it has in it’. He gets a room packed full of weird things, like swords, a banjo, eggshells, a crown...

Something’s up with that crown. He’s not certain why, but it just seems _wrong_. Any detection spells he knows come up with nothing. Considering his knowledge of those spells is about NEWT level (he is _very_ cautious), whatever’s wrong with it is something very dark, or very obscure.

Deciding that the best way to continue is the tried and tested method, Harry puts on his dragon-skin gloves – having heard of their magically-resistant properties, he thought them a good purchase – grabs it, and makes his way to Dumbledore.

Upon looking at it himself, the old man looks weary, as if this confirms something he was hoping to not be the case. This time around, he explains it to him. It is a Horcrux, created through one of the darkest and most terrible methods known to man. Through it, one can live forever, and evidently, Voldemort has made one. In fact, he has several, as the book he had given to Dumbledore in his second year had also been a Horcrux, although it has already been ‘taken care of’, as the Headmaster puts it.

Dumbledore believes there are more, and so does he. Harry theorises seven or six; seven is a magically significant number, and Voldemort is just the right kind of mad to split his soul into seven pieces, but the question is whether he made six Horcruxes and counted the piece in his body as the seventh, or if he made seven Horcruxes and didn’t count his own body’s soul as such.

Dumbledore also shares a prophecy pertaining to him, and with it, he knows that Voldemort has decided Harry is his primary foe, excluding the Headmaster.

From this, he makes a plan. He’ll come up with a spell to find Horcruxes, whether he can find it in a book or if he has to make it himself. He’ll collect them all, destroy them, and then finish off Voldemort.

He will _not_ let Voldemort win.

* * *

His class of students – as they themselves classify themselves as – christen themselves Dumbledore’s Army, and he finds it... a little redundant. Dumbledore has an army, his Order of the Phoenix, but he won’t object. These people have chosen a name, and he’ll stick to it, even if he doesn’t like it all that much. They will serve as the primary defence of Hogwarts, and will also be his comrades in arms, should his plans sour and this becomes a full war.

His new spell is coming along well. Deciding to use a variant of Hermione’s Four-Point Spell, his wand points towards the nearest keyed magical signature. It could also be used as a method to find a person, but in this case, he is looking for several parts of a person. Because of that, his intent is to make the wand release a trail pointing to the direction of the detected magical signature, then look for another afterwards. That may take a while, but it’s an entertaining thing to make a new spell, and he has the creator of the original spell close at hand, so he has no issues with continuing it alongside his other duties.

He’s managed to key Voldemort to the spell to make sure he’s detecting his soul parts – made even easier thanks to the strange connection between the two. This has come with an unintended side-effect: it continues to point at himself instead of the Horcrux he knows is still in Dumbledore’s office, although he has been able to check it works by pointing his wand closer to the crown than to himself. He’ll have to manually block himself from his own spell, which will take a bit more time to figure out, before he can use it properly to find the other ones across the country, as well as preferably see all the connections at once, as the wide range of the spell will likely cause it to be quite exhausting to cast.

The connection he has with Voldemort has come with other side-effects. Occasionally, in times where Voldemort feels extreme emotion, he’ll catch a glimpse of what he is doing. This doesn’t help much, except for when he controls Nagini, his snake, to attempt to kill Arthur Weasley. Thanks to that knowledge, they are able to save Arthur, without any more lasting damage than a scar.

He expects this connection to be two-way, which is why it’s very strange that Voldemort is still attempting to get the prophecy. Does he not realise? Does he think Dumbledore left something out? It doesn’t really matter, because as far as he sees it, Voldemort intends to kill him with or without the full prophecy.

Regardless, when he sees glimpses of Sirius being tortured in one of his OWL exams, he first goes to the two-way mirror that Sirius gave him – he’d opened the present just to check it was safe, if nothing else. Indeed, Sirius is on the other side, proving to him that Voldemort has the intention of ambushing him in the Department of Mysteries. Needless to say, he passes this information over to Sirius and Dumbledore, who amass the Order. Together, they come up with a plan.

Harry will go into the Department, alongside some of Dumbledore’s Army, under the pretence of attempting to save Sirius. Once there, he will retrieve and destroy the prophecy, just in case Voldemort hasn’t yet heard it. After that, they will lure in a great many Death Eaters, including those freed from Azkaban earlier in the year, with the hope they can capture a few and take them back to prison. A few of his inner circle may even have information that could be of use – a dosage of Veritaserum would help get answers from them.

Some of the Order are worried for Harry’s safety, but he isn’t as much. He trusts his friends, and knows they are ready and prepared for combat. No, instead he worries for the Order, especially those rusty after a good few years out of service.

He can only hope this will go well.

* * *

Harry’s sixth year begins in both mourning and celebration. The plan was successful, and they still have several key targets contained, but a few casualties had been taken. Most were injuries – a good few being his friends – but their only death had been that of his godfather, Sirius Black.

Whilst he had been busy duelling one of the many Death Eaters that had flown into their ambush, Sirius had taken on Bellatrix Lestrange, the Dark Lord’s most fearsome lieutenant. Originally putting up a good fight, he grew cocky, and had inadvertently ended up in front of the Veil, his back to it. It had only taken one good push of force from a spell to push him back, falling through it.

A great anger had taken over Harry then. Crucio had been on his tongue, biting at it, begging to be released and unload all of his rage upon her, but Dumbledore’s timely arrival had saved him from doing so. Through his comforting words, he’d been able to calm down, avoiding doing anything he would regret.

This was good, as during their questioning, they found out that Bellatrix knew of the location of a Horcrux. It was within her vault, and upon being told this, and with adequate enough pressure from both the Boy-Who-Lived and one of the most powerful wizards alive, the goblins had relinquished it into their possession.

Dumbledore believed another to be within the Gaunt’s ancestral home, and the two had gone there in order to retrieve it. Enchantments protected the shack, which was an easy way to tell something was within it. Indeed, a ring bearing an odd symbol laid within an ornate box under the floorboards. The older of the two had recognised the symbol, but before he could think of putting it on, Harry stayed his hand.

There was no doubt that the ring bore the magic of a Horcrux, but it also seemed to be cursed. For that reason alone, it was best he didn’t put it on. Dumbledore had been shocked at his intervention, but then smiled sadly, and said that perhaps it was best that Harry had come along on this venture. He placed the ring back within the box, and they took it back to Hogwarts.

With this, only two Horcruxes remain – using his spell, he could see one shoot off into the direction of London, while another seems confused, likely being some place Unplottable. Unplottability is the bane of his spell. If he knows where that Unplottable location is, the spell seems to work, as it does within Hogwarts, but if he doesn’t, it merely grows confused, giving him no useful information.

His theory is that it is Voldemort’s snake. Its extraordinary size, strength and powerful venom indicates a snake that he’s never heard of before, and he’d researched a great many snakes after learning of his Parselmouth abilities, both ordinary and magical. If it is a Horcrux, its strangeness would make sense, as well as why it is in a Unplottable location, as it is likely where Voldemort is as well.

He has a suspicion as to where the second Horcrux is, but that can wait for a few more months. For now, he wishes to go to school for a while, allow himself to be absorbed into the daily rigorousness of school work, and mourn quietly.

* * *

Needless to say, Draco’s strange schedule arouses a great amount of suspicion. Being the relative of a prominent Death Eater, there is every chance he is already marked. Considering his youth, it is also likely that he has been appointed some sort of important task, so that he may join them earlier than his fellows.

Harry decides that mourning can wait, if it will avoid more mourning.

Over the Christmas holidays, he heads back to somewhere he expects something as evil as a Horcrux would be hidden: Grimmauld Place. He’s able to get permission to perform spells outside of school, which will help his plans greatly, and as expected, his ‘Person-Pointing’ spell points somewhere within it.

Asking Kreacher to retrieve it is somewhat irritating. He isn’t immediately forthcoming, and not knowing what the item is hampers getting it even more. However, upon mentioning that it is a dark artefact that once belonged to Voldemort, Kreacher bursts into tears, bawling about a ‘Master Regulus’. Eventually, he presents to him a locket, looking to be Salazar Slytherin’s, in fact. If the sword of Godric Gryffindor hadn’t been locked up safe in the Headmaster’s office during Voldemort’s reign of terror, his immediate assumption would be that it is the last Horcrux.

Thanks to his spell, however, he knows that to be untrue. He needs to lure out the snake, in order to ascertain if it is in fact the final Horcrux, and destroy it regardless. Nagini has been a consistently terrifying enemy, and its removal from Voldemort’s forces would be of great help.

The plan is simple: he makes an easily leaked statement that he intends on going to his parents’ grave. Considering this would usually be a rather emotional moment for him, he reckons that Voldemort would prey on that weakness and send Nagini in as a covert method of attack. He’ll bring along a close friend, one he trusts, as ‘emotional support’, but in reality a backup should things go awry. He chooses Hermione, due to her skill. Ron is a close second, and loyal to a fault, and so he follows behind them in Harry’s Invisibility Cloak.

Indeed, his theory is correct. After walking away from the graveyard, an unusually familiar old lady is staring at them. Through his reading of a good amount of magical theory and history books to help create his Person-Pointing Spell, this woman’s face has appeared occasionally.

Hermione realises first that this is Bathilda Bagshot, but Harry’s Sneakoscope points out that this is what is _left_ of Bathilda Bagshot. Her silence as she leads them to her home proves enough, and a quick Person-Pointing Spell cements it. He stops Hermione just before they enter.

Whilst being an advanced form of Dark magic, Fiendfyre is also one of the ways Dumbledore has mentioned to be a method of destroying a Horcrux. Through countless months of practice in the Room of Requirement, Harry has mastered it enough to control it for about a minute.

A minute is all it takes to burn Bathilda Bagshot’s old residence to ash, alongside her decaying body and the snake that lies within it.

Voldemort has lost his immortality. He has noticed, considering his reaction of rage pulsing through the connection in Harry’s scar. There is but one thing left to do.

* * *

The battleground ends up being Hogwarts itself, as Voldemort lays siege to it from the inside, in an act of extreme bravado, or ridiculous foolishness. Whilst still a monumental battle in which many lives are lost, a good few are saved thanks to the presence of Dumbledore. Voldemort does not enter the fray, content with allowing others to fight his battles for him.

Upon the declaration of a ceasefire, in which Voldemort asks for the surrender of the Boy Who Lived into their possession, Harry looks at the bodies of those who have fallen, those who would never grow up, some as young as eleven, and decides that he has had enough. Before he leaves, Dumbledore informs him that he was correct in his original assessment of seven Horcruxes: the seventh is himself, hence why his Person-Pointing Spell had originally simply turned towards himself – it had merely pointed to the soul fragment within him.

With that information, Harry knows his choice is correct. He heads into the Forbidden Forest, knowing that with his death, no one else will die within Hogwarts’ halls. With his death, Voldemort will truly lose his immortality, and anyone will be able to finish the fight.

Voldemort, possessing the body of one of his many followers, casts Avada Kadavra, and Harry falls.

* * *

In Limbo, Harry meets Sirius, who tells him how proud he is. After a short period of happy reunion, he mentions how if he wishes, he could pass on, or he may continue his life, and finally live a little.

He chooses the latter, because the prospect of getting a chance to enjoy life sounds pretty enticing right about now. Of course, the quick reminder that he is still in the Forbidden Forest, having just been slain by Voldemort dampens his good mood.

Voldemort feels the full force of this, as Fiendfyre engulfs an entire section of the Forbidden Forest, killing him as well as those who have remained at his side for so long.

After that, Harry decides he wishes for a rest. He walks back to Hogwarts, past the surprised faces of those he'd left behind, and goes up to his bed in Gryffindor Tower, as he had chosen that House so long ago, and the long walk there after a stressful day is his continued punishment for such a foolish move.

The friends he's met afterwards are his reward for it, though.

* * *

Albus Dumbledore knows he has committed a great many wrongs in his life, most pertaining to a certain man currently sealed deep within Nurmengard, and yet he finds his largest failing to be that involving the young man that had just walked past him.

Without proper research, and without proper eyes to keep a close watch, Albus had left young Harry to the care of his Aunt and Uncle. Arabella is a good friend indeed, but she does not know the smaller intricacies of abuse, having never been in such a poor environment growing up. As such, she never notices the signs of neglect that Harry suffered through for so long.

Throughout his actions in Hogwarts, Harry has proven himself to be a just, moral man that Albus is proud to call his friend, but has also shown an intense paranoia he has only truly seen in war veterans and Aurors such as Alastor. Albus cannot help but feel like he is responsible for the overly cautious person that Harry has become, through his own neglect by not visiting the Dursleys on occasion himself. Perhaps he could have saved him from such a life.

Alas, Harry was forever changed, and would never experience the innocent childhood Albus had hoped he could. Instead, he would act with caution and care, foiling many plans by both Tom and his allies without them having a chance to sprout. Indeed, it had seemed like once a year, he’d helped stop another plot.

Harry’s immediate reveal of Tom Riddle in his first year helped their cause immensely. While the Ministry could assure the public that it was merely a malevolent ghost and not the spirit of You-Know-Who, his old friends knew exactly what this meant. He had been able to gather the Order and begin seeking out their foes from the shadows much sooner than he’d been expecting, and they were eager to assist.

He put them to use immediately. The diary that Harry have given to him as he arrived for his second year spoke of a Basilisk within the long-sought Chamber of Secrets, and Albus required roosters, as well as backup, to take care of it. Thanks to his allies, this had been done before Halloween, avoiding any unnecessary issues that could have occurred.

Its venom had come in handy, as a thorough analysis marked the diary as a Horcrux. Through imbibing the Sword of Gryffindor with the Basilisk venom, he had created a tool ready to destroy any Horcruxes Tom had been able to create..

Harry would continue to help him throughout the next few years whilst he worked behind the scenes, particularly when he was able to capture Peter Pettigrew, as well as reporting his suspicions about Alastor, who had been impersonated by Barty Crouch Jr. On both occasions, Albus felt both grateful and saddened, as it bore the reminder that he had failed the boy, and no matter how gracefully he could handle foes, his paranoia was still an attitude no child should have to suffer with.

It was for this reason that Albus decided to tell Harry the full truth in his fifth year. Whether he liked it or not, Harry had grown up early, and would involve himself no matter what, proven by his obtaining of another Horcrux, this time within the very walls of Hogwarts himself. That was yet another failing, as he had let such a dark presence within his school be undetected for so long. He’d been forced to face the truth: there would be no youth for Harry Potter, and he was partially to blame for it.

The two worked closely together from then on. Harry trained to ensure he was ready to fight Voldemort, should it have been necessary, and the two discussed Tom’s mindset, and both why he acted as he did, and the Horcruxes he had created.

Harry’s newly made spell functioned correctly on his first attempt, although Harry didn’t realise it. To Albus, this was but a sad reminder of what is to come: Harry must die, and he could only hope that it would not be permanent.

The skirmish in the Ministry was, objectively, a massive success, but the loss of Sirius Black hurt him deeply. He failed the young man once before, and failed him again, permanently this time. He could tell Harry was hurt as well, but he seemed to push through it, determined to finish the fight before more are lost. Albus knew more would die, but such is war, and all _he_ could do was help minimalise those losses.

Before school began, the two sought out and destroyed two more Horcruxes, one through the information of the captured Bellatrix, and another through his own suspicions of Tom’s ancestral home. Indeed, the Gaunt Shack contained a Horcrux, but upon it was the Resurrection Stone, and Albus fell to temptation. It was only thanks to Harry’s presence that he was stopped, and he can only wonder as to what may have happened should he have placed it upon his finger. After destroying the ring itself, the Stone didn’t even function for him, which would have made that fate rather cruel indeed.

Harry left school at Christmas with his blessing, and returned with the news of a destroyed Horcrux, and another for Godric’s blade to destroy. While he does not like the use of Fiendfyre, he could understand the reason Harry chose to use it. Tom’s snake had been elusive and dangerous in the years prior, and destroying it immediately was the best option. He had been surprised to learn of Harry’s control over the spell, however; most merely manage seconds before the flames rebel against them even after years of knowledge beyond Hogwarts, making his accomplishment even more impressive to the Headmaster.

He knew of Draco’s plan to murder him, but also knew that it would not occur. Harry’s increased fervour over Christmas was a sign that he had learned of it as well, and he would easily trust Harry with his life. The repair of a Vanishing Cabinet _had_ avoided his notice though, which had _allowed_ Tom to strike a sneak attack.

Despite this, there had been no sneak attack. Instead, they ‘covertly’ went for their captured comrades first before causing any ruckus, alerting Albus of their arrival. This hadn’t completely averted casualties, as there had been no time to sequester the younger years securely, but had helped reduce them, since the Order was able to respond promptly.

When the ceasefire was declared, Albus knew what was to come. Harry, of course, knew he had to face Voldemort, and after informing him of the situation, only seemed more confident. Perhaps he drew comfort from knowing that others could slay Tom afterwards, or perhaps he thought he could inflict a draw and cause the deaths of them both. There had been no way to know, until Fiendfyre had shot out from the Forbidden Forest, being quelled by Hogwarts’ defences before it could cause any harm to the castle or its occupants.

Albus had thought that such a draw had occurred until Harry had walked right past them. He looked tired, as any man would after the years he had been through. Hopefully, he would be able to rest well after such an immense accomplishment.

He could only hope that life would not treat young Harry so harshly in the future – he had no faith in himself to ensure it. Not anymore.


End file.
